


Cirque du Shift

by loversihaveknown



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abused Stiles Stilinski, Alive Claudia Stilinski, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Circus, M/M, Omega Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Sheriff Stilinski
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 23:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15874197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loversihaveknown/pseuds/loversihaveknown
Summary: Stiles lost his innocence and his voice a long time ago - but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped dreaming. And on the night that the circus comes to town, he’s ready to put those dreams into action, hitching a ride far away from his abusive family.The mistakes Peter made in his youth haunt him every day, but he’s been able to find a semblance of family in the other shifters in the Cirque du Shift. When Stiles turns up, Peter recognizes his fated mate immediately - but instead of rejoicing, his first instinct is to distance himself from the scarred young man who puts his own courage to shame.When Peter realizes that his mate has wolf heritage and that their proximity is drawing out the omega Stiles was always meant to be, the time for running is over. But when Peter's mistakes come back to threaten Stiles, will Peter prove himself a worthy alpha for his omega mate?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes people yank their fanfic to start their author career. In this case, I'm yanking some of my original works to reboot them as fic while I redefine my author career. Hope you enjoy <3

Peter didn't bother to look away from the dancing flames, not even when he felt the slight _thump thump_ of a walking stick as it beat the ground near him. An old woman lowered herself down beside him. 

"Penny for your thoughts, lad," she croaked. 

He didn't answer right away. Mommy Harbinger was used to that. Peter wasn't known for his loquacious manner of speaking - not anymore. There was a time when he would have talked the ear off a mule, but that time had passed. Been buried, like his family. 

Around them, the ground was turned to mud and slush. A late winter's snow blanketed the surrounding hills, but the clearing where the circus was camped had destroyed such pristine landscape. There was always that quality, though - the absence of sound a good snowfall leaves behind. It was late enough that the campfires were being put to bed, but even lit, the evening had been somewhat subdued. 

It was perfect for him. Only the crackle, snap, pop of the flames and the low murmurs of quiet conversation. 

"Shall I tell you mine, then?"

If the question surprised him, he didn't show it. Didn't startle. His head moved slowly, like stone, as he regarded her stoically. 

She grinned up at him toothily. 

He couldn't stop the flicker of amusement that ran through him. Mommy Harbinger had been a grand friend to him. 

She reached out with her walking stick and stoked the fire, sending sparks rising up into the air, glittering in the darkness. 

"Not long now." The fire cast an ominous shadow over her face. "Your destiny is coming, Wolf."

He looked away. 

His eyes caught on the glimmery, festive facades they used to disguise plain, beat up old travel trailers. It was part of their schtick. Give the audience some old world charm. 

When he'd first joined the circus, he'd thought it was ridiculous. Why hide what things really were? Subterfuge in the center ring made sense to him; pretending their tired lifestyle was something other than what it was hadn't. 

The circus was a hard life. Constant movement and uncertain finances warred with animal rights groups who didn't know the secret behind the Cirque du Shift - had no way of knowing that the animals they performed with were the farthest thing from being mistreated. Performing for crowds who didn't have a single hope of understanding the magic that enveloped their little troupe - not that he'd want them to - had gained a certain charm for him. The characters that he lived and worked with had grown to be something akin to his family, even if the circle of people he'd consider to be true friends was somewhat small. 

He sighed. 

The circus was a hard life, but it was _his_ life, a life he'd carved out for himself after the war, a satisfactory life, even. 

If his destiny was coming, he'd have to give it all up. He could do that, to protect them. He wouldn't fail _this_ family the way he'd done his first. 

"I'll leave after tomorrow's show, then," he muttered. "That'll give Ichabod time to rearrange the acts."

Mommy Harbinger laughed at him, the sound from her throat coming out harsh and grating, and she coughed when she was done. "You'll do no such thing," she said. 

"You don't understand - " he started, but she whacked him across the knees with her stick and he fell quiet. 

"It's you who doesn't understand," she said seriously, reaching out to enfold one of his hands in her old, gnarled fingers. "Your destiny won't harm us," she promised. "But will you harm it, I wonder?"


	2. ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for sexual abuse.

Stiles drug his feet down the sidewalk. His fists were jammed deep into the pockets of his thin hoodie, his entire body seeming to be scrunched up and closed in on itself. 

At least this town had sidewalks. The last one didn't, and by the time they were ready to move, he'd been placing cardboard into his second hand shoes to help him deal with debris on the side of the road. Most of it wasn't bad. Grass, rocks, twigs - that sort of thing. But sometimes there was broken glass or empty bottles or used condoms, and with the trees jutting up to the one side and traffic on the other, he wasn't always able to pick his way easily around it. 

He liked the sidewalks, but he didn't like where they led. 

He'd give anything not to have to go home. 

The house was small, but it loomed up menacingly as it came into view - the rusty shutters hung limply against the peeling paint, the roof wasn't so much shingled as it was patched, with darker spots that didn't match the original brown. Judas' old truck was up on bricks, and the old Jeep his mother had to share with him was lurking in the driveway. 

Stiles sighed. He'd expected the jeep to be gone - Judas was supposed to have a shift until six - and he wasn't sure what it meant that his stepfather was home. He hoped it didn't mean that Judas lost his job again. The last time that had happened, Stiles hadn't — 

No, he didn't need to think about that time. 

The backpack felt heavier with each step he took, until he was finally just outside the front door. He tried the handle first, but the door didn't budge. He started to reach for his keys, but before he could pull them out of his pocket, the door opened with a creak. 

His mother was just inside the foyer, looking into the living room with a pinched face. "Quiet," she warned him. "Judas is sleeping."

Stiles nodded, and closed the door carefully behind him, turning the handle in and then back out once the door was fitted to the jamb. He slipped out of his sneakers, leaving them lying neatly by the front door, and walked down the hallway in his holey socks, avoiding the boards he knew that creaked. After each misstep, he paused and sucked in a breath, but there were no startled waking up sounds, and he reached his room without incident.

The bed creaked, so he sat down gingerly before shrugging his backpack off to the side and mentally cataloging what needed to be done for the next day. He only had a few more months to go. Not too much longer, and then the law was on _his_ side and _no one_ could drag him back to whatever dump they were living in and the hell it held. He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and then pulled out his math book. 

He didn't have time to daydream about something that wasn't going to happen yet. His school record was a mess, and he'd been off his ADD meds since Judas found out he could sell them for a profit. He'd had paying attention at home beaten into him, but concentration at school was pretty impossible. In some courses he was able to get through with natural intelligence and a bit of bluffing. 

Math wasn't a course he could do that in, but it was definitely a course he'd need to pass to get into a half decent college. When he'd been younger, he'd thought of trying to get into Berkeley. It was where his mom said that she'd met his father. 

There's no way he'd be able to pull that off now. Not without meds. Not with Judas ruining any chance for happiness they might have had. 

He flipped to page 348 and tried to will his brain to behave. If he was lucky, he'd have time to get through the problems at the end of the chapter before he was summoned.

* * *

_Tick, tock. Tick, tock._

Stiles scowled at the clock. In a few minutes, his mother would leave for work. 

The knock at the door didn't startle him. She didn't wait for him to get up and open the door; she bustled right in, giving him a kiss on the forehead. "You have a good night, baby," she murmured, before Judas called out from the living room. 

"Quit coddling the kid, Claudia! He's too old for a goddamn bedtime kiss!"

She frowned at the doorway, but smoothed his hair back before leaving the room, closing the door behind her. 

She'd been taking the overnight shift at the diner. Privately, Stiles wondered how long it would take her to lose _this_ job - he suspected that she was using more often, though he didn't have the proof to back it up with. It didn't matter anyhow. 

Judas waited half an hour before calling Stiles out to the living room. His fly was already open. "You know what to do, boy," he grunted. "And make some noise this time, you freaky little punk."

* * *

Stiles didn't talk. It wasn't that he didn't know how to, it was that he just didn't, not for two years anyway. His mother sometimes lamented that she missed her babbling baby, with all sorts of clumsy words that used to come spilling out of his mouth - how his day went, what Lydia Martin or Danny Mahealani had worn to the middle school dance, the new things he'd learned from the books he'd checked out of the library.

He didn't see much need for talking anymore, not unless he was forced to, and then he only did it because it was better than getting beat. The other kids at school weren't kind to him for it, but they wouldn't be kind anyway, not with where he lived and how he dressed, and not with who his mama and step daddy were – he would never _choose_ to tell anyone, but small towns had a way of finding out and broadcasting that sort of information. 

When the bell rang for the day's end, he fixed his books in his bag and made to rush out with the rest of them, but a quick shove against the lockers sent him hurtling. He landed on hands and knees, and before he could get up, one of the jocks was behind him and grasping his hips, humping into him with cold laughter. "Look at this bitch!" the jock cheered.

The fall didn't make Stiles' cheeks red, but that did. He struggled to stand up straight.

"Leave him alone!" a clear voice called out.

The hulk behind him moved away, but not before he'd given Stiles one last voice to send him sprawling again. 

Stiles set his jaw as a hand was extended in front of his face. 

"Are you alright?" 

He ignored the hand - _Kira Yukimura_ , he thought her name was - and gave her a quick nod so that he wasn't rude, but he couldn't keep the suspicion out of his gaze. What did she want with him? He’d had a few people pretend to be nice in the last town, and he didn’t want a repeat of the humiliation he’d gone through once he’d bothered to let them in.

"That's good." She shuffled her feet. "Well," she started, brightly. "Don't let those assholes get you down, okay?"

He shrugged. 

It looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn't, and after another long moment she joined the stragglers leaving the hallway, a regretful glance thrown over her shoulder. 

Stiles sighed in relief. Dealing with people was awkward. If he didn't know what they wanted, he didn't know how to navigate them. 

A blur of purple caught his attention and he turned back to face the bulletin board outside of Mrs. Kessler's room.

  
In Town for Two Nights Only!  
Cirque du Shift!  
May 11 and 12  
Come see your greatest dreams realized as we blur the lines between human and animal!  


Huh. He'd always wanted to go and see a circus. He thought that maybe he had, once, when he was still so little as to be toted, but he wasn't sure.

There's no way he'd be able to go see _this_ circus, but maybe he should add it to the mental list of things he wanted to do once he was free. 

He started to trudge down the empty hallway, but stopped just as he met the main corridor. He didn't know what came over him, but before anyone else could come around the corner, he hurried back to the bulletin board and detached the flyer from the cork, tucking it firmly into his backpack before heading for home.


End file.
